There have heretofore been known various television games including sports games of soccer, hockey, basket ball, tennis, golf, etc. In such a sports game, the operator controls a ball (or a pack) that has been moved by a player in the game within a given play area to shoot at a goal in a given position, or hit the ball into a court or a cup, thus gaining a point. Other television games include martial art games in which players move in a given combat area and exchange tricks or techniques to win the game.
Some game apparatus for playing sports games and martial art games have a save function and a replay function.
The save function allows the operator to store the data of a game at the time it is interrupted into a memory (RAM) and also allows the operator to read the stored data from the memory when the game is resumed, so that the operator can continuously play the game.
The replay function stores the data of a game, as it is constantly updated, for a certain period of time while the game is in progress, and permits the operator to pause in the game when an excellent or rare situation, such as a nice goal or superb technique, occurs during the game, storing several scenes of the situation into another RAM. After the game, the operator can select a desired excellent or rare situation from the stored scenes for replay.
According to the replay function of the conventional game apparatus, however, replayed images of a game are displayed only from the same viewpoint at the same size in the same sequence as the images that were displayed while the game was in progress, and it is impossible to reproduce the excellent or rare situation as viewed from a viewpoint different from that of the actual game under way, for the operator to see. Another problem is that the operator cannot view scenes in an enlarged or reduced scale. The conventional game apparatus are designed such that they do not permit the operator to change freely the position itself of a viewpoint for game display, but they display images only at a given fixed angle, while a game is going on.
In the conventional game apparatus, the replay function has been performed by storing a history of control signals from a control pad which is operated by the operator during a game. When a replay command is issued, the game apparatus reads the stored history of control signals and processes image data in the same manner as in the game to play back game scenes. The reason for the above process of performing the replay function is that the memory used is of the simplest structure.
Therefore, scenes to be reproduced cannot be played in a sequence which is a reversal of the sequence of the game in progress. This is because a control signal from the control panel is entered based on the selection of a control action depending on a previous situation in the game, and a game scene cannot be played back with only control signals from the control pad unless information about a previous situation in the game is available.
In the game apparatus, the position of an object to be displayed next in a game is calculated from a control signal from the control pad and a previous situation in the game according to the algorithm of a given game program thereby to generate display data, and display the data on a display monitor. Depending on the calculating process, game scenes may not be reproduced in a fast-forward mode or a slow-motion mode. Furthermore, it may not be possible to reproduce game scenes while moving the viewpoint of the display screen (corresponding to the viewpoint of the camera), and to play back game scenes while enlarging or reducing the image through zooming in, zooming out, etc.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a game apparatus which will solve the above problems.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a game apparatus which can freely replay a game according to a command signal for reverse play, fast-forward, slow-motion, etc.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a game apparatus which allows the viewpoint of a display screen (the viewpoint of a camera) to be moved or allows images to be zoomed in or zoomed out while a game is being replayed.